In our research we have uncovered lots of really interesting experimental tanks. Some were just designs that were never completed. Others were completed as prototypes, and some even saw small-scale field testing!
These tanks were weird and wonderful, ranging from a 100-ton monster and a First World War relic, to a tank with two side-by-side main guns, an armoured car weighing more than a tank, and a machine-gun armed light tank with the armour of a heavy tank!
We wanted to try them all out to see how they might have performed if they had actually been built, so we decided to write some briefings for them, just for the fun of it!
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With the KV-1 and KV-2 heavy tanks in operation, work was begun on even heavier designs. The KV-3 was an improved KV-1, the KV-4 a design exercise that created many weird and wonderful designs for multi-turreted tanks and assault guns, and the KV-5 an immense 100-ton tank with armour 170mm (6.7”) thick mounting a 107mm gun.
In April 1941, N V Tseits of the SKB 2 design bureau was given six months to design this monster and deliver a prototype, Object 225. His design team included K I Kuzmin (hull), L Sychev (turret) and N Fedorchuk (running gear). Despite the short time frame, the design of the KV-5 was almost complete by August 1941 and production of the prototype had begun when the approaching German Army forced the design team to evacuate to the Urals. The proposed tank was huge: 36’5”/11.10m long, 13’1”/4.00m tall, and weighing 100 tons. The crew of five had plenty of room, but were widely separated.
Both the driver-mechanic and the radio operator-machine gunner had separate compartments with their own vision cupolas. The turret was large for its three man crew, with another machine-gun cupola on top for the commander.
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